As has become tradition, at the end of each year, I roll back the calendar, reviewing the best wines that I have been fortunate to enjoy.
2019 supplied me with many happy, vinous moments at the table. So let’s get to it.
2006 Archery Summit, Premier Cuvee, Pinot Noir
We were four months into the year when I discovered this last remaining bottle of 2006 Archery Summit in my cellar, the remnant of a case I had purchased a dozen years ago.
Friends came to our home for dinner. I wanted to complement Carol’s divine grilled salmon with a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and discovered this errant bottle. I thought we'd seen the last of the case years ago.
This innocent discovery turned out to be our Wine of the Night, as well as one of my favorite wines of the year.
A gorgeous integration of fruit and flavors, still young at 13 years, and not showing any signs of age, or fatigue. A rapturous wine, filled with red and dark fruits with a spirited, hedonistic finish.
98 points
2003 Roger Sabon, Secret des Sabon, Chateauneuf-du-Pape
2006 Pierre Usseglio, Réserve des deux frères, Chateauneuf-du-Pape
Ola! What do we have here? What amounts to a double-header of pleasure, two perfect, Grenache-based wines served at the same dinner.
And also, two perfect Napa Valley Cabernets!
What are the chances that you could enjoy FOUR 100-point wines at the same dinner!?
As friends came from San Francisco to have dinner with us (he is general manager and partner of a stellar, 1-star Michelin restaurant), I went deep into the cellar to find some vinous treasures to please our guests.
In a corner of the cellar, I found two Chateauneufs-du-Pape from two of the top producers in the region; these wines are now perfectly aged at 16 and 13 years respectively.
The Secret des Sabon is the winery’s top-tier wine, 90% Grenache from vines that are well over 100-years-old. This is a pretty wine with a somewhat sweetish middle palate and a gorgeous finish, which amplifies the fruit. The finish hangs on like an echo in a canyon for a good thirty seconds.
I love, love, love this wine. Complex, beautifully structured, bright on the palate. This is textbook perfect wine – what you would choose to take to a desert island if you were only permitted to take one wine to drink for the rest of your life.
100 points
The Pierre Usseglio CDP, 100% Grenache, displays slightly more alcohol on the middle palate and throughout the swallow than the Sabon. It exhibits slightly more assertive flavors, too. Lots of ripe raspberries and blackberries on the finish.
Another perfect wine, just cruising now into middle age with much more aging potential.
A glorious wine, perfect on its own, plu-perfect with a perfectly grilled, medium-rare, porterhouse steak.
100 points.
2011 ADV Cabernet
2016 ADV Cabernet
The other guests at our table were Rob and Lexie Adler, who produce one of my favorite Cabernets in Napa Valley, silky, elegant, totally harmonious ADV (Adler Deutsch Vineyard).
They brought to dinner their 2011, and just-released 2016, Cabernets.
If you recall, wine critic James Laube destroyed the challenging vintage of 2011 in Napa Valley, declaring it a disaster. The bottom fell out of the market for 2011 Cabs, due to his dismal (and WRONG) assessment of the vintage.
Talented winemakers in that wet, cold season made gorgeous wines; wines with less alcohol than perhaps consumers are used to – more like the levels found in classic Bordeaux. Some of the prettiest Napa Valley Cabernets I have tasted come from the 2011 vintage. And one of the prettiest is that of ADV.
The 2011 bottle, paired with barbecued, porterhouse steak, was sublime; it had nuances of sweet, mature fruit and ample length.
By contrast, the 2016 ADV was bigger, bolder, more show-offy, exhibiting tons of bright fruit, brilliant acidity, harmonious flavors and a tongue-clacking finish.
Think “Spottswoode,” at half the price.
2011 ADV Cabernet, 100 points
2016 ADV Cabernet, 100 points
A Trifecta of Perfect and Near-Perfect Wine
In early fall, Rob and Layla Fancucci came to dinner.
I was Rob’s former partner in Charter Oak Winery, in St. Helena, where, for 12 years, we were joined at the hip, making rich, seductive wines, which won illustrious awards for their balance and harmony. I moved on to initiate other business activities; Rob continues to operate his family winery, making sensational wines.
For our September dinner, Rob and Layla brought two sensational Charter Oak wines:
2017 Charter Oak Winery, Guido Ragghianti Red Blend and the textbook-terrific 2005 Charter Oak winery, Monte Rosso Vineyard, Zinfandel
For our dinner, I went deep into the cellar and pulled out a 2007 Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf-du-Pape. So let’s start the commentary about these wines:
2007 Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf-du-Pape
How do you rate a wine 101 points? I dunno, but I just did.
I have opened so many bottles of Vieux Donjon over the last 30 years that I could be their brand ambassador to the United States.
Some bottles have been good, some have been great… and then, every 24 bottles, or so, you hit one that has such a perfect blend of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Cinsault that you would trade an organ, or dog, for another perfect bottle.
This was one of those bottles; the wine was unctuous, rich, sublime. There were undercurrents of ripe purple, red and blue fruits; there was perfect, mouth-watering acidity on the finish. 101 points (sorry but that’s just how the judge feels about this wine.)
2005 Charter Oak Winery, Monte Rosso Vineyard, Zinfandel
For the record: This is a wine which Rob and I made together.
We bought six tons of grapes from the Monte Rosso vineyard, the oldest Zinfandel vineyard in America (now owned by Gallo).
When we bought this fruit, the vines were about 135-years-old.
Rob and I carefully coached this wine into life; we aged it in neutral oak and have watched it age in bottle for a dozen years. OMG – this evening, it grabbed me by the lapels, shook me, and made me proud of our efforts. I wanted to genuflect in its presence for being so inspirational.
99 points
2017 Charter Oak Winery, Guido Ragghianti, Red Blend
I turned my shares of Charter Oak Winery back to Rob years ago, and after we split, I failed to taste all the SKUS annually coming out of the winery.
The 2017 vintage, which Rob brought to dinner, is a stupendous wine, his personal favorite since we stopped making wine together.
This beautifully structured wine exhibits ripe red and blue fruits. It’s going to be a serious contender as Wine of the Year in the St. Helena appellation four years hence, when it has had time to age and integrate.
97 points… and growing.
2015 San Filippo, Le Lucere, Brunello di Montalcino
Get your rain gear on, America!
You are about to be drenched, if not drowned, in a January tsunami of tremendous wine from Italy.
Specifically: The soon-to-be-released 2015 Sangiovese-based, Brunello di Montalcino wines are going to blow the doors off your wine cellar.
I just visited Montalcino, in Tuscany, and blind-tasted two-dozen pre-release 2015 Brunellos, (released in January).
I am not alone in my praise for this vintage; winemakers, winery owners, and professional wine writers are uniformly agreeing – 2015 IS THE BEST VINTAGE OF BRUNELLO IN HISTORY.
Thomas Bianciardi is winemaker at San Filippo. I had the pleasure of having lunch with him, tasting through several vintages of his sublime wine, including a bottle of the soon-to-be-released 2015 cuvee, Le Lucere. Several days later, I identified it in a blind tasting of a dozen 2015s Brunellos. I tasted it on another occasion, too. Each time, it was my favorite wine of the flight.
While I ascribed 100 points in Montalcino to numerous 2015 Brunellos (the vintage is THAT spectacular), I was mesmerized by Le Lucere’s richness, breadth, complexity, chocolate notes, sensuality, weight on the palate and sublime finish. And the wine hasn’t even been released yet!
To properly place San Filippo’s Le Lucere Brunello di Montalcino in the hierarchy of other stupendous 2015 Brunellos to which I ascribed 100 points, I will have to attribute 102 points to the Le Lucere to be faithful to, and accurate with, my rating scale.
Good on ya, Thomas, you broke the rating scale!
Happy New Year to all; may your 2020 be filled with as many vinous pleasures as mine has been in 2019.
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